Category Archives: Media Coverage
Is it opera? Or music theatre? Or both?
Blog reader Wendy Gleim, who’s hosting the private post-performance party for composer Philip Glass and his Book of Longing posse at her Ashley Avenue home on Friday, sends along an excellent feature from the Toronto Globe and Mail about Glass from last week, written just prior to that city’s world premiere of Glass’ new work [...]
Spoleto central: Kudu Coffee
If, as Geoff and Dan at SpoletoToday have observed before, the Spoleto press room this year is not quite as buzzing with activity as in previous years, the unofficial top artist hangout spot this festival is more than making up for it. That would be African-themed Kudu Coffee on Vanderhorst Street, half a block from [...]
Starred Book review
There’s finally a review of Philip Glass’ new work Book of Longing from its Friday night world premiere at Toronto’s Luminato Arts Festival. Writing for the Toronto Star, columnist Greg Quill seems to have mixed feelings about the work, which had Leonard Cohen in attendance for its opening. Cohen’s new book of poetry and drawings, [...]
Hotter than Dutch love
The twenty-something hipster quotient at Friday’s Spoleto Soiree was off the charts and into another realm altogether. You could have powered a small city for a week on the sexual energy crackling around the Gaillard Exhibition Hall, fueled by several open bars, pulse-punding ung-cha-ung-cha from a DJ in the corner, enough liquor to fill the [...]
Our foreign correspondance
The New York Times’ James R. Oestreich continues to be the sole representative of the major U.S. news media in town for the festival. Ironically, the Toronto Globe and Mail seems to be the only other out-of-towner with a reporter, Paula Citron, on the streets of Charleston for some critical reportage – possibly because that [...]
Music man
Thursday morning’s tribute concert to Gian Carlo Menotti played to a Sottile Theatre that was stuffed to the exit signs with memorializers and, let’s be frank, those who didn’t care much about Menotti one way or the other but were only too happy to take in a free concert by the SFO. I’d wager that [...]
Talking dirty: a defense of Closer
In today’s Post and Courier, Spoleto overview critic Joshua Rosenblum strokes his chin over a pair of festival plays that have infidelity as their common theme – Spoleto’s drawing room comedy The Constant Wife and Piccolo’s production of Closer, in the little festival’s Stelle di Domani series. In his smartly written argument, Josh observes that [...]
Blame Canada!
Next Wednesday, on June 6, Spoleto Festival audiences will see the American premiere of composer and minimalist pioneer Philip Glass’ new music theatre work Book of Longing, which is one of the 2007 festival’s gold-plated gotta-sees. Spoleto loves to premiere new works, which is part of what makes the festival an international presence. But note [...]
New York Times on the local arts beat
There’s a new Spoleto blogger on the scene, at least for the moment: New York Times arts reporter James R. Oestreich, posting yesterday evening at 9pm on the Times’ new Arts Beat blog. In the past year, the Times has rolled out a seemingly endless series of blogs administered by staff writers and reporters. One [...]
1758 meets 1984 circa 2007
This afternoon, Spoleto Today blogger Geoff Marshall and I were conversating via e-mail (naturally) about the fact that in recent years, outside major media coverage of Spoleto has gone through the floor – tracking pretty closely with the downward spiral of arts coverage in newspapers and magazines in general all over the country. Even a [...]
